Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1887-07-15
WASHINGTON SPRINGS COUNTY, FRIDAY Y IS 1877

being enrolled on local option petitions
every day, who openly aver chat this
may never helpme, but it may save nv
children from the degradation Of strong
drink.
Friend Moorehead, permit me to call
your attention to the report of the bu-
reau OF statistics, OF the amount of H.
quor consumed in the United States in
the year 1885. the cost of which was on
ly the moderate little sum of s693.53s.-
OPS.
Are not these figures appalling, when
considered in connection with the ter
rible results Better, by far, had this
immense amount of money been swal-
lowed up by Che briny deep, or had been
buried with the ill-gotten gains of Cap
tain Kidd, where mans ploW-share had
never disturbed its resting place. But
the laws of OFT country sanctioned the
sale in the form of license, and seem, by
this, to recognize in the intoxicating
cup something which is indispensable
to the well-being of man. l repeat, it
seems that way and is incapable of ex-
Iplanation upon any other hypothesis.
But where will you find among all the
cohorts of dram-shops a man base
enough to acknowledge the charge?
Our friend Moorehead would have
US believe that high license would be
an effectllal panacea for all the wounds
inflicted by intemperance.
/ How high, friend Moorehead, would
you fix It? High enough, we suppose,
Ito sooth the widows groans and the
lorphans' tears? High enough to pay for
converting men into demons? High
enough to pay for the infraction of ev-
cry law proclaimed on Sinai, and every
christian precept embraced in Christs
sermon on the mount? High enough
to assuage the pangs Of hunger? High
enough to quiet the conscience of the
drunken libertine and debauchee, when
the cold sweat of death commences to
gather upon his forehead?
We cannot stand with the enemy of
prohibition. We cannot afford to as
sumo the fearful responsibilities of
such a position, and, While he ponders
on the terrible amount of money en-
pended, in this land of ours, for intoxi-
cants, get him to try to conjecture in
some possible way the amount of hui
man misery and ruin wrought by the
sale. Ask the asylum for the insane!
Ask the gallows! Ask the prison.
house! Let the wife of the drunken
husband and father speak out! Let the
children, in battered garments and SUI
fering the gnawing hunger, be heard!
No, my friend, high license, though
it were twice as high as the heavens,
can never reach and eradicate this ma
tional sin, this national canker; Its
fangs are sunken too deeply in the body
polite, it's wounds are too putrid to
yield to your remedy.
No, sir! I would that it could be pro-
claimed from the house-tops Of every
advocate Of high license: License, as
far as controlling this evil is concerned,
proves to-day, = always has proven, :
and always will prove, a delusion, a
snare, a humbug, cheat. Intoxicating
liquors are destructive to body, mind
and soul, = destructive to the fabric
which holds up society, destructive to
the tender relat ton between man and
his family, and destructive Of the holy
relation between the soul and its God!'
You claim, SIT, to be temperance
man, and doubtless you are, but are you
sure that you have given this question,
that affects not only the temporal, but
the eternal welfare of SO many of your
fellow beings, that consideration which
you should have done, before arraying
yourself on the SIDE of the enemies of
prohibition?
Since the metes and bounds of Jer-
auld county were fixed, its name has
never been furnished by a legalized
dram=shop. Next to God, the Women's
Christian Temperance Union should
share the honor OF be4ueathing to us
this blessing, and now it remains for
us to Say, whether it shall be perpetll-
ated to the generations which shall
come after us, or whether we will spurn
it from our borders as thing incom-
Incompatible with the rights and liber-
ties of fretmen.
NJ. w. NEsMITI1.
What True Merit Will Do.
fl,l 10 no,c